India rejects reference to PM in Epstein investigative files

PTI

New Delhi

India on Saturday strongly rejected a reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the investigative files related to Jeffrey Epstein, describing it as “little more than trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal” that deserves to be dismissed with the “utmost contempt”.

The latest files relating to the convicted sex trafficker were released by US authorities.

“We have seen reports of an email message from the so-called Epstein files that has a reference to the Prime Minister and his visit to Israel,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement.

“Beyond the fact of the Prime Minister’s official visit to Israel in July 2017, the rest of the allusions in the email are little more than trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal, which deserve to be dismissed with the utmost contempt,” he said.

The email is among investigative files released by the US Justice Department on Friday.

The department released 3.5 million pages and 2,000 videos in line with an American law that was passed by the US Congress.

The BJP accused the Congress of spreading misinformation against the Prime Minister by “twisting” a generic email fragment of investigative files into a political smear, asserting that there is “zero evidence” of any direct or indirect interaction between the two.

Terming the Congress’ post on X a “fraud”, BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra accused the Opposition party of sharing the document after editing its content to malign the Prime Minister’s image and dent India’s reputation before the world.

“The Congress added the words, ‘his advice’ in Jeffrey Epstein’s email by editing it to portray as if Prime Minister Modi took some advice from him. These words were not in the (original) email. Congress added these words by fraudulently editing the email,” Patra charged.

“There will be consequences of such fraud. Such kind of 420 (cheating) is taken into cognizance and punished,” he added.

BJP leader Amit Malviya flagged the Opposition party’s post as “fake news”.

“The Congress’ sensational claim that Jeffrey Epstein wrote about Prime Minister Narendra Modi allegedly taking his ‘advice’ to ‘dance and sing’ in Israel for the benefit of a US President is a gross distortion of the facts,” Malviya, the BJP’s IT department head, said in a post on the microblogging website.